The Mammoth Book of Awesome Comic Fantasy

by Mike Ashley

  Pisky decided to rest one oxen-like haunch on Lucas’s desktop, overlooking his instinctive shrinking-back. The castors of Lucas’s chair hit the wall, and he was forced to end his retreat. Pisky leaned forward to convey the intimacy of her request.

  “We need your stimulating presence at this party, Lucas. I promise you that I’ll intervene personally if Owen steps over the bounds of good manners. Please, won’t you promise to come?”

  “Yes, yes, certainly, I’ll be there!”

  Pisky regained her feet with surprising grace and ease considering her tonnage and moved toward the door. “I’ll see you this afternoon in Crowther Lounge, then.”

  After Pisky had left, Lucas directed his eyes to the crucifix hanging across the room. He tried to compose a small prayer of thanks for his restored solitude, but his mind was diverted by the sight of the agonized Christ’s distended ribcage. When was the last time Pisky had seen her own ribs? Lucas found himself helplessly wondering.

  * * *

  Crowther Lounge sported the usual mix of unappealing chairs and couches marked by threadbare armrests and stained stuffingless cushions resembling in shape the defective haemoglobin of sickle-cell sufferers. On a formica-topped folding table an assortment of novelty crackers and unnatural cheeses occupied plastic silver trays. Jug wine in assorted surreal shades begged to be decanted into plastic cups, tasted once, then surreptitiously poured into the sickly potted plants scattered around the room on the traffic-grooved carpet.

  When Lucas arrived, the soiree was already in full swing. The faculty of the Astronomy Department, supplemented by volunteers from allied divisions, busily besieged both the refreshments and the famous Doctor Ferron Grainger Garnett, the university’s latest star hire. Garnett had achieved a measure of media prominence with his television special, broadcast on both the BBC and PBS: When Bad Universes Happen to Good Sapients. Mixing pop psychology with cosmology, shallow philosophy with the many-worlds school of physics, the series had appalled Lucas. Naturally, it had been a smash.

  As soon as Lucas entered the lounge Pisky spotted him and began to wave. Sighing helplessly, Lucas moved through the crowd to within a tolerable distance of his large friend.

  “Oh, Lucas, you must meet Doctor Garnett! Here, let me introduce you.”

  Pisky gripped his elbow and forcibly manoeuvred herself and Lucas through the crush around the superstar astronomer. Once within the inner circle, Lucas was horrifed to realize that his nemesis, Owen Hulme, stood directly at Garnett’s right hand. Moreover, Hulme’s aggressively sparkling wife, Britta, flanked Garnett much too familiarly on the newcomer’s left.

  For a brief moment before anyone registered Pisky and her victim, Lucas sized up the trio. Stocky and bulldoggish, Owen Hulme had chosen to offset his monkishly bald pate with a fierce dark beard. Lean and whippet-like, his wife Britta overtopped him by a good six inches, half of her advantage inherent in a magnificent teased crown of blonde hair. Lucas could not help but think of the couple as minor caricatures from a Tintin comic. (Lucas had confessed this sin of uncharitableness more than once, but kept sinning helplessly every time he saw the pair.) Ferron Grainger Garnett, on the other hand, possessing the rugged virility of a Burt Lancaster or Spencer Tracy, had seemingly been ordered up from Central Casting to fill the role of manly astronomer.

  “Doctor Garnett,” enthused Pisky, “meet my dear colleague, Lucas Latulippe. Lucas holds the Ashley Chair in the Mathematics Department. He’s the university’s prime candidate for a Fields Medal, if ever we had one.”

  Embarrassed by the praise, Lucas extended his hand too precipitously, nearly jostling Garnett’s drink. Managing to connect after some fumbling, Lucas sought to deprecate his accomplishments. “Hardly, hardly. Just a few minor papers concerning n-dimensional manifolds, appearing in the odd journal here and there.”

  “I think I’ve seen your work footnoted,” said Garnett, pleasantly enough. “In a paper by Tipler, perhaps?”

  This conventional scientific compliment on Lucas’s quotability index failed to please the mathematician. The last thing he desired was to have his pristine work find practical application in the far-out theories of some cosmic snake-oil salesman. Nevertheless, Lucas bit his tongue and offered a demure acknowledgement of the supposed honour.

  A red-faced Owen Hulme had been glaring at Lucas throughout the exchange. Now the brusque compact fellow slugged back his wine, thrust his face forward and said, “Lucas is our resident mystic. A regular saint, in fact. Claims numbers come direct from God, or some such bosh. Or is it the Pope who delivers your axioms?”

  A smouldering rage, kindled at the mere sight of Hulme, now threatened to flame up within Lucas’s bosom. He battled to control himself. “Professor Hulme’s words conceal, as usual, a seed of truth within a husk of hyperbole. My private faith, centred in the earthly representative of God known as the Bishop of Rome, does increase my reverence toward my vocation. And I plead guilty to having claimed that mathematics offers proof of a divine basis for creation. I think perhaps that in the best of all possible worlds we would all feel this synergy between our work and our devotional impulses.”

  Britta Hulme contributed her thoughts now. “My hair-dresser, Simon, has started practising Santeria. He claims that the goddess of the sea, Yomama or some such silly name, guides him when he gives shampoos.”

  Garnett tried to smooth over the nearly visible tension with a chuckle and a platitude. “Well, all religions have their share of wisdom now, don’t they?”

  Lucas’s disgust expanded exponentially, and he blurted out his true feelings. “That is the kind of spineless guff that leads to indulgence in the worst sort of pagan nonsense. Witches, astrology, druids!”

  Hulme said, “You should talk, Latulippe! Your beliefs verge on the Kaballah!”

  “The Kaballah! Why, I never—”

  Pisky intervened. “Lucas, I’m sure Owen meant nothing critical against your beliefs or against the Jewish religion either. Why, look – you don’t even have a drink! Come with me and I’ll get you a glass of vino.”

  Lucas allowed himself to be steered away. Hulme could not resist a parting shot. “Has your Pope burned any astronomers lately, Flowerboy?”

  Turning back to offer an indignant reply – something along the lines of John Paul’s graceful millennial mea culpa – Lucas found himself yanked so violently by Pisky that he lost the opportunity.

  At the refreshment display Pisky apologized profusely, but in whispers. Calming down somewhat, Lucas accepted her apology but insisted on making an immediate departure.

  Outside, Lucas unchained his Vespa from a bike-rack and donned his safety helmet. Unable to afford both a car and the accompanying monthly garage fees, Lucas had hit upon this type of motor scooter as the ideal mode of transportation for his daily short-range needs, having witnessed the utility of the little motorbike on Roman streets during a pilgrimage to the Vatican.

  Halfway to his apartment, Lucas pulled up outside his church. Father Miguel Obispo, refilling the fount with holy water, greeted Lucas kindly. Distracted, Lucas nodded rather too curtly and proceeded to the Communion rail nearby the altar. He kneeled and began fervently to reiterate his daily prayer for the chastisement of unbelievers.

  Midway down the sunbeam road between Heaven and Earth, Saint Hubert turned to Saint Barbara and said, “Persistent fellow, isn’t he? Doesn’t he know we’re already on our way?”

  “Did you ask the Bird to announce us?”

  “Why, no, I thought you did.”

  “Saint Barbara huffed. “Forgetful old coot!”

  “You juvenile hussy!”

  The rest of the trip passed in frosty silence.

  Lucas Latulippe woke up to his burring alarm the morning after the disastrous Astronomy Department party feeling positively sanctified. That spontaneous detour for prayer had settled his soul. He couldn’t recall ever feeling so hale and hearty, in both mind and body, this early in the morning. Why, he felt almost as if the Rapture had
occurred while he slept. Still lying in bed with his gaze fixed on the familiar stippled ceiling, he patted himself tentatively through the coverlets. His bodily sensations seemed within the normal range for mortal existence, and no Last Trump sounded from outside, so he reluctantly concluded that he had better get up and start his normal routine.

  After a visit to the bathroom, Lucas, belting his dressing gown about him, headed to the kitchen. Oddly enough, he could smell fresh coffee. Had he left the coffee machine on overnight? And what was that radiance spilling out of the room? Had he forgotten to turn off the overhead light as well? Usually he was meticulous about such things—

  An elderly bearded man, somewhat grouchy-looking, and a youngish woman of definite vivacity, both strangers to Lucas, occupied two seats at his small kitchen table. Each wore a flowing silken ivory robe terminating just above their bare feet. Each cupped hands around a mug of steaming coffee, gratefully and even a trifle greedily inhaling the aroma. And each sported a floating halo dispensing several thousand candlepower.

  “Won’t you join us, Lucas?” the woman said agreeably.

  “Pull up a chair, son,” advised the man

  Like an obedient zombie, Lucas did as he was bade. The man poured him a cup of coffee, and the woman asked, “Sugar? Cream?”

  “Nuh – neither,” stammered Lucas.

  The woman lifted her cup and drank eagerly. After setting it down, she said, “Ah, that was blessed! It’s a shame there’s no coffee in Heaven.”

  The gowned man had duplicated his partner’s actions and now agreed with her sentiments. “A beverage reserved for Earth and Hell, unfortunately.”

  “Who – who are you two?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” apologized the woman. “Allow me to make the proper introductions. I’m Saint Barbara, and my friend is Saint Hubert. We’ve come in answer to your prayers. We’re the two patron saints of mathematicians. But I suspect an intelligent worshipper such as yourself knew that already.”

  The awe and reverence Lucas had been experiencing now began to be subsumed by a natural suspicion and paranoia tinged with anger. “Saints, are you?” Lucas half arose and swished his hand between the unsupported halos and the tops of the intruders’ heads. “A nice effect, but I’m not taken in so easily by a simple hologram. Who sent you to play such a mean-spirited trick? Was it Owen Hulme? Of course, who else would stoop to such an irreligious prank?”

  The man who had been introduced as Saint Hubert showed some irritation. “We know nothing of this Hulme fellow. We’re obeying God’s direct instructions. You requested, as I recall, that your mocking colleagues be allowed ‘to witness the transcendental glory of Thy sovereign mathematical Holy Spirit’.”

  Lucas grew deeply confused. “How could you know the contents of my prayers?”

  Saint Barbara expressed some impatience of her own. “Hubert explained it quite sufficiently to you. God heard your prayers and sent us down to satisfy them.”

  Lucas cradled his head in his hands. “I don’t know what to believe. Could you at least turn those halos or holograms or whatever they are down a trifle? They’re giving me a splitting headache.”

  “Oh, sorry.” “Certainly, no problem.”

  Once the halos had dimmed, Lucas looked up again. “Hubert, Hubert – I don’t ever remember reading about a Saint Hubert. Barbara, now, though, I recall your story. Quite dramatic. Your father had your head chopped off, didn’t he?”

  Saint Barbara smirked at her partner. “Yes, he did. And then he held it up for everyone to see, just like this.”

  Saint Barbara grabbed a handful of her own thick hair at the crest of her skull and lifted her entire grinning head off the sudden stump of her neck, separating the two at an indiscernible wound. An enormous quantity of blood gouted out, splattering across the table into Lucas’s lap.

  Lucas’s own head, still attached to his body, shot backward in horror and hit the wall. He slumped unconscious to the floor.

  “If there’s one type of person I detest most heartily,” Hubert said peevishly, “it’s a showy martyr.”

  Barbara’s head, speaking in gory isolation, was a disconcerting sight even to Hubert. “Showy, maybe. Convincing, definitely.”

  When Lucas awoke for the second time that morning, he felt more damned than exalted. His head ached, and he was disinclined to open his eyes. Perhaps his earlier nightmare would prove consequenceless if he just lay here—

  “You’ll feel much better if you sit up and drink your coffee,” Saint Barbara said.

  Lucas groaned and opened his eyes. He had been carried to his parlour couch. No trace of blood remained on his pristine clothing. The visiting Saints flanked him solicitously. As if reading his thoughts, Hubert volunteered, “I apologize for my partner’s shock tactics. Your kitchen is spotless again. I even emptied the filter basket on the coffeemaker.”

  Lucas sat up with a groan and accepted the mug of coffee. “If I acknowledge your Sainthood, could you please make my headache go away?”

  “Only with some aspirin,” Barbara said. “We can’t really perform healing miracles, you see. That’s not our provenance. We have to stick to mathematical miracles. Each saint has his or her own area of expertise.”

  “No healing of lepers,” affirmed Hubert. “No raising the dead.” He paused thoughtfully. “Multiplying fishes. We can do that, since it involves math. Wouldn’t that qualify as something of a biological miracle? I wonder if we’d be trespassing on anyone’s territory there?”

  Barbara waved off this quibble. “There’s overlap, certainly. But I don’t think He would mind.”

  “I appreciate hagiology as much as the next person, but if one of you could get me those aspirin now, please—”

  After two cups of coffee and the aspirin, Lucas felt considerably better. Growing accustomed to the reality of his celestial visitors, Lucas found his curiosity and interest growing. “Mathematical miracles, you say? Exactly what would those be like?”

  Hubert answered, “Oh, basically the practical realization of any abstruse mathematical proof or theorem or concept. For instance, why don’t you get up and try walking into the kitchen?”

  Lucas stood, took a single step—

  —And found himself instantly two rooms distant. He turned to confront the gleeful Saints in the doorway.

  “How did you do that?”

  Hubert answered smugly. “I simply gave you momentary access to a few of the higher dimensions you’re always speculating so blithely about. Hardly broke a sweat.”

  An enormous sense of the possibilities inherent in having two mathematical Saints apparently ready to do his bidding in the campaign to enlighten his pagan enemies suddenly burst over Lucas, and he smiled broadly. He suddenly felt like he imagined the unburned Joan of Arc must have.

  “Am I the only one who can see you two?”

  “We will manifest to whomever you please,” Barbara said.

  Lucas chafed his hands together like a silent-film miser ready to foreclose on a mortgage. “Excellent. Let me get dressed, and then I’ll ride into the university. You can meet me in my office.”

  “We can transport you there instantly,” offered Hubert.

  “No, no, I can’t waste God’s gifts on trivialities. Save your sacred powers for the reformation of the unbelievers.”

  Lucas departed to shower (despite being clean, he couldn’t quite shake the memory of his earlier bloodbath) and to dress in street clothes. When he had closed the bathroom door behind him, Barbara said to Hubert, “What a charming fellow. Really sweet and cute, too. And he’s so much more considerate than my last client. I don’t know how many times I had to transport him to campus when he was running late.”

  Rather than utilize his favoured bike rack, Lucas parked his Vespa outside the Blackwood Building that housed the Astronomy Department, dropping the kick-stand but not chaining the bike. He looked over his shoulder at the empty air and asked in a low voice, “Hubert, Barbara – are you there?”

&
nbsp; His skin pringled as if with a wash of holy radiation and Hubert’s voice issued from a fluctuating crack in space. “We’re right behind you, lad. Consider yourself shielded in Godly armour.”

  Reassured by his invisible choir, Lucas strode boldly into the building and straight for the office of Owen Hulme. Fluorescent light shone through the frosted glass inset into the designated door, and Lucas heard muted voices from inside. He knocked boldly on the door and was answered with a gruff, “Come in!”

  Bracing his shoulders, Lucas entered the lion’s den like angel-guarded Daniel.

  Hulme occupied his desk chair while Doctor Garnett sat in the single visitor’s seat. The two men evinced differing reactions to Lucas’s appearance. Garnett expressed mute embarrassment, as if recollecting Lucas’s humiliation at the reception, tinged with a general air of uninterest, while Hulme actually let loose with an involuntary bestial growl.

  “What brings you here today, Latulippe? Unless you intend to make a full apology for your disgraceful behaviour yesterday, you might as well turn straight around and hie yourself back to your private miniature Vatican.”

  Feeling his cheeks redden, Lucas nonetheless spoke boldly. “Far from intending to apologize, I have come here today to throw your impious folly back into your hairy face, Hulme! Prepare to meet the messengers of an angry God. Barbara! Hubert! Reveal yourselves!”

  The two barefoot Saints popped into existence at floor level, flanking Lucas.

  “Yes, God was indeed angry the last time we saw Him,” Hubert volunteered, reaching up to adjust his canted quasar-bright halo. “But we two were the focus of His wrath, not these gentlemen.”

  Barbara rudely admonished her partner. “Shush, you old fool!” The astronomers had started slightly at the miraculous visitation, but soon regained their coolly rational, dismissive attitudes. Hulme in fact seemed more irritated than stunned. “Very impressive, Latulippe. Just like a third-rate Mystery Play. But unless you get these two shabby conjurors and yourself out of my office immediately, I will have to call Campus Security.”

  Lucas trembled with indignation. “You dare to mock God’s chosen representatives? What will it take to convince you that your whole materialistic life is founded on a lie?”